Data-driven decision making ensures a competitive advantage for organisations because threats and weaknesses within the business are highlighted early, allowing for strategies and solutions to be implemented to minimise impact. The data analysed can be from both external and internal sources.

Monitoring and understanding the relationships, patterns and trends within current and historical collected data is required within Data Analyst roles; along with the ability to work with statistical software, analytics tools and methods for ongoing and developing assessments. Data should be extracted and put into report format to ensure other departments within the business can also understand and use the information collected.